Spotify’s subscribers rise to 182M despite Joe Rogan controversy

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The audio streaming service's subscriber numbers haven't seen much impact from the controversy surrounding the Joe Rogan show, according to the latest earnings release.

Premium subscribers of the service rose 15 percent on a year-on-year basis to 182 million, up from 180 million in the previous quarter. At the end of last year, there were 406 million monthly active users. Premium subscribers rose 16 percent in the previous quarter, while monthly active users were up 18 percent.

Excluding the impact of our exit from Russia, subscriber growth exceeded expectations, the company said in its press release.

The company's subscriber growth did not seem to have slowed down as a result of the Joe Rogan controversy. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulled their music from the platform after they said Joe Rogan was spreading vaccine misinformation. Users pledged to stop using the service as #SpotifyDeleted became a trend.

Rogan said that he gained subscribers as a result of the controversy.

The world's largest audio streaming service is called Spotify. Apple Music had 60 million subscribers, and Amazon Music had 55 million, according to figures compiled by Music Ally.

The company said it would be suspending its services in Russia at the end of March. In a statement, the company said that legislation recently enacted in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine was the reason for the suspension. The suspension was announced at the end of the financial quarter, and the company said it would be over by April. It reports that it has already seen 1.5 million disconnections as a result of a wind-down and that it expects to see 600,000 more in April for a total of over 2 million.

The most successful new market launch to date was the launch of its services in Russia.

The average revenue per user for premium subscribers decreased slightly from last quarter to this quarter, but it increased 6 percent year-on-year. The company made a profit of 131 million dollars this quarter. This is the first time in a long time that quarterly profits like this have been made.

This quarter was the one year anniversary of the launch of the new higher quality streaming tier called Spotify HiFi. Despite saying that it would launch Hifi before the end of the year, it is still not available. Apple Music, the world's second largest music streaming service, announced and then launched its own streaming service after the announcement of Spotify.